If there is one food in the world in which the Epicurean takes delight above
all others, it is the crab. The sign of the Crab (Sartan/Cancer)denotes a time of the year when the most extreme aspects of
the physical world are most attractive. The crab symbolizes being
given over to the pleasures of the flesh. The crab is most at
home in water. And water flows as it desires. The heavenly body
that rules Cancer is the moon, and the moon's pull on the earth
greatly influences the earth's largest body of water - the sea
- the native home of the crab.

The Aramaic translation of Tammuz
is 'heating,' which suggests the heat of desire. However,
this same heat can be used to fire the spiritual side of a person
and bring him to return to G-d. Heat can be turned into light.

This month's sign corresponds to
the tribe of Reuven, and it was Reuven who was the first person
to return to G-d purely out of love, turning the 'heat' of his
personality into light.

On the 17th of this month - Shiva
Asar B'Tammuz - we commemorate the burning of the Torah by
Apostumus Harasha, one of five disasters that occurred
on that day.

Although this event is mentioned
in the Mishna, the exact details are not known from primary sources.
There is, however, an oblique reference in the Jerusalem Talmud:

"Where did he burn it? Rabbi
Acha says at Lod, and the other Sages say at the roadways
of Taurusa."

The Achronim (later scholars)
estimate that the event took place later, during the reign of
the Roman proconsul Cumanus, some 16 years before the great
Jewish revolt against the Romans, which led to the destruction
of the Second Temple under the Emperor Titus.

The historian Josephus Flavius
records that this was a time of great hardship for the Jewish
People. One Passover, as a result of a Roman soldier indecently
revealing himself and swearing at the crowd, 10,000 men were killed
in the ensuing violence on the Temple Mount. That Passover, the
entire nation mourned.

Shortly after this calamity, robbers
attacked and plundered the cortege of a Roman official, Stephanus
(Apostumus) on the royal road near Beit Choron.

Cumanus, the proconsul, sent troops to arrest the villagers who lived near
the scene of the crime. He held them responsible for not intervening.
During the arrest of the villagers, one of the Roman soldiers
seized a scroll of the Holy Torah, tore it into pieces, and set
it ablaze.

The fury of the Jews knew no bounds.
From all directions they came. It was as though the Romans had
burned the entire Land of Israel in a holocaust of fire.

Cumanus hanged the soldier publicly to prevent an uprising.

&QUOT;WHERE ONE BURNS BOOKS, ONE WILL, IN THE END, BURN PEOPLE.&QUOT;

(HEINRICH HEINE 1797-1856)

The 17th of Tammuz marks
the first book burning in Jewish history, but it was certainly
not the last.

The Franciscan theologian, Alexander
of Hales, noted that burning the Talmud would be an appropriate
punishment for anti-Christian speech or actions.

Louis IX of France ruled that the
Talmud was "full of errors, and that the veil covers the
heart of these people to such a degree, that these books turn
the Jews... to fables and lies."

In 1242, as a result of this attitude,
some 10,000 copies of the Talmud, carried in 24 wagon loads, were
burned at the stake before the eyes of grieving Parisian Jews
who were kept at bay by royal soldiers. Jewish communities all
over Europe mourned this and later destruction of these holy books.

Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg lamented:
"O [Torah] that has been consumed by fire, seek the welfare
of those who mourn you."

In 1244, Pope Innocent IV ordered
Louis IX to again burn the Talmud, and to forbid Jews from hiring
Christian nurses or servants. Louis willingly complied.

As late as 1553, under Pope Julius
III, Cardinal Peter Caraffa, head of the Inquisition and the future
Pope Paul IV, ordered copies of the Talmud burned in the Papal
States and all across Italy.

YOU CAN'T BURN FIRE WITH FIRE

During the Mussaf service
of Yom Kippur, there is a section which describes the death of
the Ten Martyrs at the hands of the Romans. One of the ten was
Rabbi Chananya ben Tradion. The Midrash teaches that he was executed
on the pretext of teaching Torah publicly, a capital offense according
to Roman law.

He was wrapped in the Torah scroll
that he always kept with him, and the Romans set him and the scroll
afire. To prolong his agony, they packed his chest with wool
soaked in water. Rabbi Chananya said 'The parchment is consumed,
but the letters fly up in the air.'

The Torah is fire, and fire cannot consume fire.

The body of a Jew is like the parchment on which the Torah of
his soul is written. Even though the parchment decays, the letters
fly up to return to their source.

STONE-FREE

Interestingly, one of the five
tragedies that we commemorate on the 17th of Tammuz also
involves the letters of the Torah flying back to Heaven.

After receiving the Torah, Moshe
came down from Sinai with the first Tablets of the Law. What
greeted his eyes was the sight of the people dancing around a
golden calf. As a result of this sin, the Jewish People were
no longer on a level to receive the Tablets. Thus, the letters
took leave of the stone and flew back up to whence they had come.

The Tablets were now unsupported
by the letters - the spiritual light that buoyed them up - and
grew too heavy for Moshe to carry. Moshe threw down the deadweight
stone, and the Tablets smashed on the ground.

AS CLEAR AS BLACK AND WHITE

Two thousand years before the Creation,
the Torah existed in its primordial form as black fire on white
fire. You cannot burn fire with fire. You cannot burn an idea.
The Torah is the 'idea' of Hashem. It is His Will.

The day must come when the Jewish
People will be a torch and all the mindless chaff of materialism
will finally go up in smoke like so much straw in the biggest
bonfire in history!